


Night falls and winter weeps

by SmallSith



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo, The Language of Thorns - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, I made myself sad, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 01:19:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14509362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmallSith/pseuds/SmallSith
Summary: I saved a seat for youat the table of my heart,and I waited for you to come home.There is someone waiting for him, far away, and he wears a promise around his throat that cannot keep, that he will come back to her.





	Night falls and winter weeps

No one but him has ever seen it, but the Darkling wears a necklace which he never takes off. It's nothing special to look at, just a simple chain on which hangs a silver clasp. And in that clasp, a single black pearl is set. A pearl harvested from a clam that lived in the islands of Kenst Hjerte to the very north of Fjerda. The pearl was a gift, given without note, wrapped in dried seaweed and delivered by a raven. 

The sender is known only in the legends told by Fjerdan fishermen, sitting around their campfires, or whispered over mugs of ale in dimly-lit coastal pubs as storms rage all around them, howling winds and pounding waves. The legends tell of a sea-witch, one who grants wishes to the lonely, the bitter, the brokenhearted- to anyone willing to strike a bargain. But the man who was once called Aleksander knows her, and she gave him this gift.

The gift is both a reminder and a promise- _you will never be alone,_ it says. _I will always come back._

Its sender waits in the cave she has made her dark home. She waits every summer for him to come back to her. And every summer he has returned, even if for only a day or two, but no longer. He will never come back to her cave by the sea. The promise is broken, the pearl cracked and blackened with him on his funeral pyre. _You will always be alone._

**Author's Note:**

> sorry


End file.
